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Friday, 29 May 2015

Event: Bistro 1847 Kickstarter Launch

Bistro 1847 is a vegetarian restaurant in Birmingham's Great Western Arcade. They also have a restaurant in Manchester and are hoping to open one in Liverpool.

So, they have launched a Kickstarter campaign! If you aren't familiar with Kickstarter, it is a crowd-sourcing website which allows businesses or start-ups to ask the public for money. 1847 are asking for £60,000 to open a Liverpool site and build their cooking school, which will train their chefs and staff. The money will also go towards improving the Birmingham and Manchester sites.

I've been to Birmingham's 1847 with Yelp before and I'd been meaning to go back. So I was extremely excited to be invited to the Kickstarter launch party earlier this month. Bistro 1847 wanted to show off their menu, their new head chef and also get us talking about their Kickstarter!

Edd and I joined a group of 40 local bloggers, the Yelp crew and other local foodies. We were immediately offered some wine and our glasses were kept well topped-up all night!

We'd been promised a three-course meal but actually, with snacks and pre-dessert it was more like five!

The snacks arrived on a tray and looked rather mysterious. Luckily they were explained to us so we knew what they were.

Pickled mushroom, chargrilled cucumber. A fresh and tasty start to the meal.

Beetroot soup, coconut creme with dark chocolate. Chocolate and beetroot is a classic combination and this was a really interesting little glass.

Pea puree, basil jam, grapefruit in pastry case and sea salt. This sounds like a weird combination, but the fresh flavours worked beautifully.

Onto the starter...

63 degree poached egg, chargrilled asparagus, salted baby turnip. I've never tried an egg cooked this way before so I was excited to try. It was a very interesting- the yolk and white had a similar texture and burst into a sauce for the asparagus. The asparagus was beautifully cooked and the turnip added just a bit of crunch and salt.

Main course...

Ratatouille, red pepper jus, burnt aubergine puree, polenta hash brown, confit onion, confit tomato. This was not like any ratatouille I've had before! The confit tomato and onion were bursting with flavour, the hash browns mopped up the sauces and the whole thing was super tasty.

Pre-dessert...

Poppy seed, banana custard, peach rhubarb, micro coriander. This was a sweet, fragrant treat. Not too sweet, just right to lead us into the dessert...

Apricot and thyme jam, tofu almond creme, sugar, cubed coated strawberries. I wouldn't call them cubes but that's hardly a problem. I loved this as an end to the meal. The jam and creme were almost bitter, combining with the sweet strawberries beautifully.

Now, I'm not a vegetarian but you don't miss meat at all when you eat such an exciting meal. I think the people of Liverpool would be jolly lucky to have such a super restaurant. My meal was vegetarian but they also cater to vegans and any other dietary requirement.

Any donations between £15 and £50 get a gift such as a mug, bags or aprons. Donate £50 and you'll get a three course meal for two! There are some great rewards on there and only 10 days left to back them, so have a look and see if you can support a fantastic business.